Sony has spoken briefly about the new PlayStation app for phones and tablets before, but some new screenshots of the thing in action, and a summary of its abilities from PlayStation’s boss show why it’s a lot better than the old one.
It does simple stuff like let you compare profiles and trophies, like the existing app does, but then it goes and does so much more. Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida tells the PlayStation Blog that you’ll be able to:
- Send and receive messages to friends, who can receive them on either the app or the PS4 itself.
- Ditto for voice messages.
- Receive gaming invitations from a friend on the PS4 to you, on the app.
- Buy a game on the app and have it start downloading automatically to your PS4.
- Watch recorded or live streaming gameplay from a friend’s PS4 console.
- “Second screen” capabilities
Some of those can be done on rival consoles, some we already knew about, but seeing it all laid out like that makes it sound like a pretty handy piece of tech.
And a surprising one. Sony has a long-running and richly deserved reputation for making fantastic hardware and terrible software (XMB excepted). Anyone who’s had to transfer data to a Vita, or use a Sony camera, will understand. We don’t know how this performs, of course, but at least in terms of design and features, this is lightyears ahead of anything else Sony has put together on the gaming front.
The app will be free to download on both iOS and Android.
Shuhei Yoshida shows off the new PlayStation App [PlayStation]
Comments
11 responses to “The PS4’s Mobile App Sounds Fantastic. No, Really.”
Sounds cool.
Looks great. This type of functionality would / should be great to compliment the next generation.
The technology has been there for a while but it seems that the capability was never really developed.
Let’s just hope the psn prices for the games aren’t stupidly expensive. That’s the only thing that holds me back at present.
I want to be able to peruse PlayTV’s schedule and set shows to record. The amount of times I’ve missed things by forgetting to set them before leaving the house … assuming PlayTV comes to PS4, of course.
If you have a Vita, you can access PlayTV in Remote Play. It’s kinda cool.
I don’t have a Vita – yet – but apparently you can do it with a PSP as well. I never bothered with it since free, public wifi is more or less non-existent in Australia.
is it just me or does the ustream icon look suspiciously nintendo?
So if my friend had a PS4 and I have this app can I watch him stream. Even if I dont have a PS4?
If they keep having good specials purchasing games at work and have them download at home will be tempting!
Presumably that auto download feature will work for PS3 games too, given the changes in the latest firmware.
Their current mobile app seriously needs work. It’s buggy, laggy, graphic elements pop in and out, it doesn’t let you do much other than look at profiles and trophies. I take it this update will hit with the PS4 launch?
‘Your comments will be my power’ is now my latest slogan.
I’ll believe this when I see it with my own eyes running on my own handset…..
It’s surprising how much the big players have all struggled to produce a solid mobile integration platform for their respective systems. I’ve been constantly let down by all of their promises for a long time. Anyone remember Xbox Live Anywhere? Was announced in 2005 at E3, and made promises that still haven’t been met even today with the current Smartphone/App marketplace environment.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it is just downright difficult to do well. Do you have an app just for your console? How do you make an API for developers to use? Do you make it client side or server side? How does it integrate with the iOS/Android/WP SDK’s?
Mobile integration is hard.